An Evening with Meredith Monk

Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference Culture Influencing Community Change Proceedings from the Conference November 5-7, 2001 Mohonk Mountain House New Paltz, New York An Evening with Meredith Monk November 4, 2001, 8:30 p.m. © 2002 Grantmakers in the Arts An Evening with Meredith Monk I want to thank you for all the support you’ve given to people. Another thing that it can do is to offer us artists over the years, and for you to know how a place where people can experience fundamental much we appreciate that support. energies that we don’t necessarily have words for. Our mind has what I call “discursive mind,” which This is going to be like a little three-act play. The first is the narrator in our mind looking at something or is that I’m going to talk, which is what I was asked to experiencing something, and then talking about it in do, so I will. Then I thought I would sing one or two our minds. The real experience of art is when that things for you, to give you a little idea about the style. part of the mind can relax and can rest, and you’re And then Ching and I are going to have you sing with experiencing in a very direct way the very funda- us. Or we are going to try. mental energies for which we don’t have words, that we don’t articulate except in the terms of mystery I wanted to speak of some very personal things or discovery. about my process as an artist, and my response to September 11th. I wasn’t in New York, but my loft What’s kept me going over the years are these is about ten blocks above the World Trade Center. moments of discovery and, in a sense, curiosity is There were some young dancers who were subletting what keeps me going. Being able to tolerate hanging my loft, so of course I was first very worried that they out in the unknown, which again I think is really were all right. Having not been there, the distance something that’s not totally comfortable. Certainly from the event puts you into a mode of contempla- not comfortable. But it’s something that keeps you tion and throws everything in your life upside-down. going, because if you knew what you were going to For that day, I did a lot of questioning about being do, there wouldn’t be a reason to do the process. That an artist in this world, and what relevance does that would be more a way of making a product, that we have in the world? Could I be more helpful in a more know what’s going to happen before it starts. direct way? For me, what gives me satisfaction in the process At the end of that day of thinking and meditating of making art is throwing myself to the edge of the and contemplating, I again came back to the idea that cliff, not really knowing what it’s going to be. As when we do something we really love and we’ve painful as it is, to not know what it’s going to be and devoted our lives to, and we share that with other tolerate that. people, that’s actually really the most fundamental thing that we can do to make the world better and In terms of grantmaking, that’s been something that’s to make some kind of sense of insight and wisdom been very challenging for me over the years. I don’t in the world. I’ve been working about thirty-seven know what the title of my piece is going to be in years. There are times in my life where, it’s a kind advance. I don’t know what my tech crew is going of nonverbal thing and not something that I’m that to be. I don’t know necessarily how many people are conscious of, but I take something like a vow, and going to be in it. The process of making the work I’ve done that a few times in my life. It’s not that is what makes me be able to find these things out, I say, “Now, today I’m taking a vow.” It’s just, some- and that’s the beauty of working. That’s something to thing happens that I know I’m making this commit- really think about. The value of that sense of mystery ment and this devotion. That was something that and the sense of being able to not make the same happened after that day as well, with a real sense of shirt over and over again, but each time to start anew. surety. That is really indeed what we have to share That’s what gives us the depth of what we’re trying as artists, and is really important for the world that to convey or to share with other people. That’s a we live in. really important thing. I think that it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity, Another aspect I wanted to tell you about is this idea for one thing, to make a connection. That’s very of collaboration or negotiation in making art. I’ve just important, to connect. That’s something that art can finished a piece called Mercy which is a collaboration do in a very deep way. Another thing that it can with a visual artist, Ann Hamilton, who represented do is to offer a way of listening to each other and the United States in the Venice Biennale two years affirming our diversity, and really listening deeply to ago. It’s the first time that I’ve ever collaborated with each other and the differences between us. Another another artist right from the beginning, conceptually. thing is to offer beauty and wisdom and insight Usually I do the visual work in my own pieces, but Grantmakers in the Arts 2001 Conference: Culture Influencing Community Change 3 An Evening with Meredith Monk this was in a sense letting go of some of that to allow really has both of the strengths of us standing side- for another person’s sensibility. by-side and affirming both of our strengths. What was very moving about the process was how Actually, the first image is that Ann reaches across, hard it was for us, what a challenge it was. I write and she has a light. She developed a little tiny video my own work, I write the music, I do the movement camera that’s in my mouth. This was incredibly layer, I work with a visual layer, I usually do my own uncomfortable. So it’s in my mouth, and when I open video or film, and I weave together these elements my mouth, you actually can see her. So when I sing, into a whole, a world. Each piece is like a world. as I open my mouth, on the screen behind us, you Ann in her work does exactly the same thing. She has literally see the image of Ann. You see mostly the sound, environment, obviously the visual aspect. So, light that she’s shining, but you see her face a little who was exactly going to do what, when the two of bit in there. So you see her, from my mouth’s point us came together? of view. I think that maybe, in a nutshell, that’s what the piece is about. The original impulse was that we had incredible respect for each other, and a trust that neither of us But in fact, what the piece is about is compassion and would embarrass the other person, that we would be mercy, or lack of. We premiered it last July – two able to come out with something that we both felt months before September 11th – and it was kind of good about. The challenge was to have both sensibili- chillingly prescient of what was going to happen. ties be totally whole and have total integrity, and yet we had to figure out where to let go. Where do The piece is a meditation on help and harm, human we actually let the other person have that energy help and harm. The centerpiece of the structure is that they need? It’s a sense of renunciation on a these three solos that were based on people who certain level. have a sense of personal courage. One of them was a doctor in England in the 1960s who had come from It was a process of two people negotiating and, even an Oxford education, very upper class, and ended though it was very, very difficult at times, we were up giving that all up to live in a village of working- trying to understand each other’s way of working. class people, and became, in a sense, the priest, the That was incredibly fascinating, that her process is healer, the listener. We had the idea that in medicine very different from mine. She reads a lot before she now there’s not so much listening, you know really does her work. It’s very verbal, her process. Mine is listening, to the whole person. Everybody would very nonverbal, even though I read a lot all the time. come to him with any kind of problem that they But my way of working is nonverbal. Yet, what Ann had. That was the idea of healing, which is, again, is trying to do is a very nonverbal thing.

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